THE BASICS OF INSANEJOURNAL

If you're reading this post, chances are I've invited you to join me on InsaneJournal and you aren't quite familiar with it yet. In this post, I will show you how to;

1. Add users to your friend's list.
2. Use journal text cuts to avoid clutter.
3. Upload icons and manage them.
4. Join an asylum (comm).
5. Customize your journal.
6. Understand the term "CDJ".
7. This thing here -> sharpest_lives_
8. How to get started on actually roleplaying.
9. Friend-lock your journal so only you and your friends can see your journal posts.
10. Code foreign language to have an English translation when you hover over the text.

Adding Friends

Adding friends to your InsaneJournal is actually extremely easy. As long as you have the correct user handle, you can simply go to this page here and type your friend's handle in the small dialog box there. Hit 'save changes' and it's easy as that!

Journal Text Cuts

If you go on my journal sharpest_lives_ you will notice that instead of having all the text from these tutorials dragging down my page, there is instead a text shortcut that leads to the actual content of this post. That is a text cut. This is one of the most important functions on all of InsaneJournal and will save you a lot of clutter in the meantime.

If you don't want to label your text cuts, simply remove the text="" part and the text cut will automatically show up as "Read more".

<lj-cut text="This is a text cut label"> YOUR ACTUAL TEXT GOES IN HERE </lj-cut>

If you don't want long text posts cluttering up your layout, then simply put that code before your writing. Problem solved.

Uploading Icons

Once you've created your journal, you have the option to edit your profile. Another option you are offered is to upload your userpics. You are allowed 100 icons as a Free Patient member. Icons are typically the default one-hundred by one-hundred pixels. Keep note that some people like to use the keywords to sort their picture. They do this because sometimes when replying to another person, they like to change their icon so their muse's icon reflects their emotions. When you go to comment someone's journal, simply click the browse button and it will bring a dialog box up with all your icons in one place!

Joining An Asylum

This is one of the trickier things to do on InsaneJournal. There is a glitch that happens quite a lot (I don't know why) so just pay attention to this part.

When you first find a panfandom game or any kind of roleplaying group, you usually have to go through a mod journal to even find the comms to request (and those comms are usually found when you read the application). Some asylums have an open membership (which means you don't have to wait to be accepted) and some have a closed membership (meaning you must request the comm before whoever moderates those comms can approve your journal into the asylum).

When you click on the link to join a community journal, you will see a page like this. When you click "Join Community", you will see another page that looks like this. Don't worry about that. Simply refresh the page on your browser. You may be asked to resend information, so click "okay". The owner of that comm journal will get an email saying that you want to join the asylum in question. They will approve you and then you will get an email saying you have been accepted into the comm. I could be wrong but I think you might also get an email saying if they rejected your request.

When you decide to post to that particular comm from your journal, simply go to post a new journal entry. There will be a dropdown box and you simply click the name of the journal you would like to post in.

Note: Since I am using my CDJ handle in all my examples, there are no other journals in my dropdown box because my CDJ is not associated with any community journals.

Journal Customization

This is where the fun REALLY begins. When you first start your journal, it's naked. And it needs to be prettified. There's really a vast amount of customization options, but if you want a neat and clean-cut looking journal, some of my favorite places to be for that kind of stuff is tessisamess, lobelia, and chestnutgallery.

The first thing you need to know is that there are two different kinds of customization styles on InsaneJournal. S1 and S2.

Each style has several different sub-styles that you can use to customize your journal.

S1 is complicated and requires a bit of extra know-how with HTML. These journals can look extremely fancy and have very nice customization options, but they aren't for the faint of heart. Especially if you only want to make minor alterations. Chestnut Gallery focuses exclusively on S1 journal layouts and themes.

S2 is easier to use but still requires basic knowledge of how HTML works, just in case you want to make changes to your layout. Lobelia focuses exclusively on S2 journal layouts and themes.

Tessisamess deals in both S1 and S2 style layouts. Make sure to follow the instructions when using these layouts.

Hollow Art is a site dedicated to helping people get icons for their face claims, check them out! You never know what icons you might find.

CDJs and Their Function

CDJ is just a short term for the phrase "Character Development Journal" but to be completely honest with you there is no right or wrong way to use a CDJ and everyone does their own thing.

I used to use mine to keep track of my games and my various characters.

I keep a private post that has all my journals sorted by their fandom for easy access. I had another post that had a list of the games I was currently involved in as well as their comm journals and their mod journal in case someone stumbled upon me and wished to join that game as well.

My other posts were simply character rosters that told me which characters I was playing in that game, who their roommates were, which room they were staying in, and which journal I was using for that character in that particular game.

Other posts are like this one. Informative and educational (sort of) or they have a list of contact information.

Tagging Userhandles

Did you know you can link somebody's journal simply by doing this?

<lj user="username">

Yea, it's pretty nifty.

Roleplaying

Starter posting is easy. All you need is this template right here:

<small>|[ WHO ]|</small> : Characters involved in storyline <small>|[ WHERE ]|</small> : Location of the roleplay taking place <small>|[ WHEN ]|</small> : Can be canon point, time of day, anything. <small>|[ WHAT ]|</small> : What is going on in the storyline? <small>|[ RATING ]|</small> : G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, take your pick. Make sure to include a trigger warning, if there needs to be one. ( Rape, self harm, suicide, gore, blood, murder, etc. Anything emotionally disturbing, for the sake of wandering eyes. ) <small>|[ STATUS ]|</small> : Open, Closed, Open to character one, two, three, and four. <lj-cut text="Title or text here"> <center> <div style="width:550px;text-align:left;"><font style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 13px; color: #000000;"> This is just a bunch of random jargon to make up some sort of space. Blah blah blah. Here's another sentence. "Oh what's that, you want dialogue, too? Well here you go, mate. Have some talking or something." says the vacant voice out of nowhere. "And here, have one more line of dialogue just because I like you." That was a very random paragraph. Now it looks nice and uneven like a natural paragraph should. This is just a bunch of random jargon to make up some sort of space. Blah blah blah. Here's another sentence. "Oh what's that, you want dialogue, too? Well here you go, mate. Have some talking or something." says the vacant voice out of nowhere. "And here, have one more line of dialogue just because I like you." That was a very random paragraph. Now it looks nice and uneven like a natural paragraph should. This is just a bunch of random jargon to make up some sort of space. Blah blah blah. Here's another sentence. "Oh what's that, you want dialogue, too? Well here you go, mate. Have some talking or something." says the vacant voice out of nowhere. "And here, have one more line of dialogue just because I like you." That was a very random paragraph. Now it looks nice and uneven like a natural paragraph should. This is just a bunch of random jargon to make up some sort of space. Blah blah blah. Here's another sentence. "Oh what's that, you want dialogue, too? Well here you go, mate. Have some talking or something." says the vacant voice out of nowhere. "And here, have one more line of dialogue just because I like you." That was a very random paragraph. Now it looks nice and uneven like a natural paragraph should. </lj-cut>

Now, this template is actually just slightly fancier than just typing in a normal comment with the top portion with the who, what, when, where and other stuff. When you actually hit the "Save" button and view the entry, it will look like this. Replace my rambling with your paragraphs of literary gold and there you go. Starter is done.

Now you just have to wait for your roleplay partner to reply to your comment and begin the thread for real.

Friend-locking Your Journal

Are you a selective roleplayer and don't want snoopy RL people fishing through your journal posts and occasional fanfics? All you have to do is friend-lock your journal. If your journal is friend-locked, nobody but you and your friends will be able to see your journal posts. Everyone else will have to wallow in their misery of not being able to snoop on you.

To friend-lock your journal, go to this page here and enter the following command:

set newpost_minsecurity <level>

Do not use the < or > sign. It is purely for reference. Replace "Level" with "Friends" and there you have it. All posts after you've entered this command shall now be posted as "friends only".

Using Foreign Languages?

We all have that one character who knows one or two languages other than their native. Occasionally you'll want to use those languages but of course, not everybody knows how to speak Spanish, French, Japanese or Romanian. So what do we do?

Use this code here:

<a title="English translation goes here">Your foreign language segment goes here</a>

That's all you need. Easy, right? Here's an example:

Ceci est une phrase en français.